


Never Waste

by margarks



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s01e03 Hide and Seek, Gen, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 10:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4518144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/margarks/pseuds/margarks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But it's hard some days to watch Sheppard. The easy way that everyone loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Waste

**Author's Note:**

> In a post requesting [prompts](http://margarks.livejournal.com/888385.html) on my LJ, [outsideth3box](http://outsideth3box.livejournal.com) left me this - "how about something with Rodney being inappropriately jealous of John, who isn't really doing anything Rodney should be jealous about" . If you still want to leave me some prompt there please feel free.

_Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run._ ~ George Bernard Shaw

Rodney knows what they think of him. He's always known. He's abrasive and arrogant, though justifiably so, and he knows from a lifetime of experience that the combination does not typically translate itself into making friends. 

He likes to think that he is above caring about the peons who work around him, and most of the time he is. 

But it's hard some days to watch Sheppard. The easy way that everyone loves him. The handsome guy. The hero. 

Rodney's saved thousands of people's lives over his years with the SGC. Only nobody knows it. Or nobody cares; because he uses his brain, not muscles or guns or gravity-defying hair. No, he builds the weapons guys like Sheppard use. And nobody cares what happens behind the scenes, do they?

He doesn't have to hear the words to know what everyone is saying about him now. He doesn't know why the shield won't come off, but if it was some sort of subconscious fear he might have, well, it's _subconscious_. If he could control it, the damned shield would be off and it would be a _conscious_ fear, then, wouldn't it?

Just because he's a scientist, not a soldier, who may have very reasonable fears that normal every day civilians have, does not make him a coward. He's here, isn't he? Galaxies away from home with no guarantee back. 

But everyone forgets that, don't they, when confronted with someone like Sheppard, someone so ostensibly brave. He could be the poster boy for all good little SGC boys and girls, right alongside General O'Neill. 

Rodney's not jealous, per se, because hello, even if the flyboy does have more of a head for numbers than Rodney might have assumed, he's still nowhere near Rodney's level. So, it would be illogical to be jealous of someone so clearly inferior.

Maybe it would be nice to have people occasionally think the best instead of the worst of him. But that doesn't mean he's jealous. Just because all Sheppard has to do is smile at someone and have inane small talk about Ferris wheels to make lifelong friends doesn't mean Rodney wants to be Sheppard or anything.

No, he's not jealous. Why should he be? People should be jealous of _him_. He's a genius! He's the world's foremost expert on wormhole technology (even if Carter thinks it's her, he knows the truth)!

He wouldn't give that up just to be… liked.

Even if some days he can't stand the sight of Sheppard's stupid smile or the sound of Teyla's laugh as he tells some ridiculous joke. 

He's Rodney McKay. He doesn't need to have Sheppard's way with people because he doesn't need _people_. 

Rodney has his genius and he has his work. He's spent a lifetime learning that he doesn't need anything else. 

THE END.


End file.
